Dysphagia, or difficulty in swallowing due to fear of choking, is common among all age groups. For example, it is observed in about 35% of the general population, as well as an additional 30-40% of elderly institutionalized patients and 18-22% of all persons in long-term care facilities, many of whom are required to consume medications on a regular basis to maintain their quality of life. This leads to poor or even non-compliance with oral treatments and thus has a negative impact on the efficacy of oral treatments.
The primary treatment objectives for patients with epilepsy are maintenance of adequate anti-epileptic drug levels and prevention of subsequent seizures. In patients with mood disorders such as bipolar disorder, the objective is to prevent relapse and stabilize mood. In both cases, compliance with the prescribed dosage regimen is essential for the maintenance of therapeutic blood levels.
Lamotrigine is an anticonvulsant drug used in the treatment of epilepsy and bipolar disorder, and is used to treat partial seizures, primary and secondary tonic-clonic seizures, and seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Lamotrigine is chemically 3,5-diamino-6-(2,3,-dichlorophenyl)-1,2,4-triazine). It has an empirical formula of C9H7N5Cl2, a molecular weight of 256.09 and the structural formula shown below:

The preparation of lamotrigine is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,602,017, which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference for all purposes. Lamotrigine is very slightly soluble in water (˜0.17 mg/ml at 25° C.; ˜0.57 mg/ml at 37° C.), but is significantly more soluble in 0.01N HCl (˜3 mg/ml at 25° C.) and 0.1N HCl (˜4 mg/ml at 25° C.).